Week 5: Forms of Assessment & Instructional Design

Forms of Assessment:

Chapter six discusses the different forms of assessment that can be used in the classroom.  A good assessment tool will have validity and reliability.  It is imperative that the assessments used in our classes are a direct reflection of what has been taught in the classroom, and the reliability has to remain consistent throughout. I find that my students are more comfortable with assessment as long as it makes sense to them what they are being graded on, and that it is consistent every time.  There is a wide variety of assessment tools that can be used, but for my band class, I mostly used performance-based.   Every few week students have a playing test on an area that I have chosen.  It could be a part of a piece we are learning, a line in their method book, or study that is important.  Every time that I assess them they have the same rubric.  At the beginning of the year, I go over the rubric with the students, and they have a copy stapled to the back of their method book.  This way, they always know what is expected.  I have found that this gives a lot of students a great comfort.  The only time the rubric for performance-based assessment’s changes in my classroom is when we have a scale test.  I use a separate rubric for scale testing.  This rubric is given to them at the beginning of their second year in band.   Rubrics are one of the biggest tools in my classroom for assessing the students.   Because the use of rubrics is utilized throughout the entire school, the students are very familiar with them.  I also agree with the text that feedback is a necessity.  I never understood why my teachers in school gave me a grade, but never told us what we needed to improve on.  It is a waste of time to assess students and then not supply them with the feedback and encouragement.  They need to make improvements.  At the end of the year, I use a rating scale and a summative assessment as feedback from the students.  They get the opportunity to grade me and the class as a whole.  This provides me with feedback I need.

Instructional Design:

Chapter seven discusses how people learn differently, how teachers need reflection, and music copyright laws.  It is obvious within a classroom that students learn in different ways and at different rates of speed.  It is also extremely important that teachers reflect upon their lessons and how their students are learning.  Constantly thinking about what needs to change and what can be made better for the students.  Often times for me, it is easier to think about what I want the end result to be from any given lesson plan and then work backwards.   Back before my band program had grown, I only had two band classes and the other four classes I taught during the day were general music classes.  During that time, I spent two full classes talking to students about music copyright laws and public domain.  I find that young people today have access to downloading music illegally, and they should understand not only that it is wrong, but also what the consequences are. 

References:

Bauer, W. I. (2014). Music learning today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and

responding to music.

Bazan, D. (2016, August 2). Technology Assisted Music Teaching & Professional Development.

Lecture.